Effect of Chemical Reaction on Bioconvective Flow in Oxytactic Microorganisms Suspended Porous Cavity

Abstract

In this paper, the bioconvective flow in a porous square cavity containing oxytactic microorganism in the presence of chemical reaction is investigated. The bioconvection flow and heat transfer in porous media are formulated based on the Darcy model of Boussinesq approximation. The governing partial differential equations are solved using the Galerkin finite element method. The computational numerical results are exhibited by the streamlines, isotherms, isoconcentrations of oxygen, isoconcentrations of microorganisms, average Nusselt number, average Sherwood numbers of oxygen concentration and microorganisms. The effects of key parameters such as bioconvection Rayleigh number (Rb), chemical reaction parameter (Kr) and thermal Rayleigh number (Ra) are presented and analyzed. It can be deduced that the chemical reaction reduces the strength of isoconcentrations of both oxygen and microorganisms. It has been revealed that the chemical reaction has a greater effect on the swimming of the microorganisms, average Nusselt number, and average density number.

Keywords

• thermo-bioconvection
• oxytactic microorganisms
• porous square cavity
• chemical reaction
• finite element method